Political Quotes

“I rise tonight to strongly support the conference committee for agricultural research and to first commend our chairman and ranking member, as well as the Chair and ranking member of the subcommittee who have worked so hard. This is truly a bipartisan bill. It is good for production agriculture and it is good for families in Michigan. It is good for families across the country. We have heard tonight about the important need for crop insurance, critical agricultural research, food and nutrition programs, and I want to speak just a moment about food safety. My good friend, the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Blunt) and I introduced a safe food action plan just a number of months ago. Two critical provisions of that are in this legislation: making food safety a top priority for research, and creating a crisis management team to respond in the case of an emergency in a very rapid fashion. Today also at Michigan State University, where we have a national food safety and toxicology program, we are doing a two-day national research institution conference to focus on risk factors for food safety. Today's action could not come at a better time.”